


Games And Glitter

by definitelynotdaniel, whosthatpokaimon



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Youtubers, Autistic Character Written By Autistic Authors, Autistic Edward Nygma, Canon Autistic Character, Dancing, Gay Bar, Gay Panic, M/M, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, also babitha, and not the shenanigans you expect, and oswald is a gremlin, brief internalized homophobia, but not the roommates you think, hey guess what? more roommate shenanigans, roommate shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:47:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/definitelynotdaniel/pseuds/definitelynotdaniel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whosthatpokaimon/pseuds/whosthatpokaimon
Summary: Ed Nygma is on top of his game. He's a successful youtuber, never loses a game, and has garnered a reputation for smart ass comments and a cocky attitude. But that all changes when he sees a gothy, unenthused beauty guru take his place at #1
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 20
Kudos: 84





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is more of a unique take on an au that a lot of us in the nygmobblepot haven server seemed to enjoy, so daniel and i hope you all enjoy as well!

The recommendations really sucked that day. Nothing good and  _ nothing _ relevant to their interests. Which, regrettably, took them to the trending page. Maybe they could find better content there?

One of the first videos they spotted was a gaming video from the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy. The title was “BEES??? - Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - #4” and the thumbnail was of Crash, head and limbs inflated from death by bee sting (they recognized it from their personal experience with the game). It was posted by a channel that called itself Enigmatical.

“What kind of channel name is that?” the viewer spoke to themselves, “They sound like a nerd that lost their brain cells to conspiracy theories…” 

Did they really want to click on this? They considered for a second before deciding there was nothing else to do. On the screen, there was indeed a nerdy looking young man, trying his best to get through the course. It appeared to be a clip from later on in the video.

“I’m fine, it’s fine, this is going great, wait nO STOP! FUCK!!” The man screamed as his marsupial avatar ran into a hive before the screen cut to black. That was… well, it wasn’t uncommon for a youtuber, but it was unexpected for the nerdy and slightly timid looking man. Suitably intrigued, the viewer allowed the video to play. 

“Hello, all my enigmas! This is Enigmatical, back with more…” his expression went blank and the camera zoomed in slowly as he continued with a sorrowful tone, “... Crash Bandicoot.”

He looked kind of cute— Short brown hair pushed to one side, headphones with glowing green cat ears, large glasses, and a green sweater over a black tie. He looked like he was in a studio apartment, a blinking neon sign behind him outside the window. Seemed like green was a theme here.  The man continued speaking. 

“ Today is gonna be a bit shorter of a video as I have plans for later today, but  this time… things will be different. I am not gonna die ONCE on this run. We’re going to beat this section. I can see it, I  can see the end now. I can see my victory against Cortex…” He dramatically placed a fist against his puffed chest. They let out a snort at his showmanship,  especially considering what they had just seen. As the man talked, the viewer zoned out for a minute, before being brought back to the present by a near deafening screech.

“HOW?! How did that  _ fucking _ happen?! I pressed the button, are you seeing this?” the man stopped his ranting for a moment, and his character hopped a few times. White text appeared in the corner that said  _ Button Blame Counter: 10 _ . He grumbled, “Okay, well, it's doing it now, but it obviously wasn’t before!”

The viewer snorted at that, “Sure, whatever you say.”

The man started again, ego only slightly bruised. He was silent for a few moments, this time making the jump before he decided to speak. 

“Apparently, the Valeska brothers have been messing with people’s shoots as of late, and Jim and Harvey are worried they’re next… lucky for me, I don’t leave the house, so there’s nothing they can do to me!” 

That sounded almost depressing, but he continued speaking before the viewer could reflect on it. 

“The last time they tried anything, Harvey chased them around screaming, along with the other kids the brothers had recruited. Maybe they know to stay away by now but who knows?” The man lapsed into silence, concentrating hard on the level. The viewer had to admit, he was halfway decent when he wasn’t distracted. They found they were rooting for him, ready to celebrate with him as he neared the final green box-

When the door to his room was flung open and a bearded man with long hair stepped in. 

“Hey, Ed, I’m thinking of trying out a new cocktail, you want one?” the intruder asked as the man, Ed, missed his jump and killed yet another orange bandicoot.  He was hit by a boulder first, but then fell into the hole as a result. Even with a golden Aku Aku at his side. Unfortunately, they don’t save him from a fall.  Ed stared at the screen for a few moments before turning slowly to look at the bearded man, a too-wide smile plastered across his face.

“That sounds great Harvey, glad you came and asked me,” the viewer could practically hear the tension in his jaw as he spoke, and they saw Harvey’s eyes flick towards the screen in time to see a pair of red shoes fly upwards from the pit. As he realized what he had done, the older man mouthed a “sorry” and slunk back into the hallway. Ed stood from his chair, pacing for a few minutes before sitting back down, replacing his headphones and picking up his controller. 

“Once more, with gusto,” he gritted, and started back towards the end of the level.  He pushed onward and emerged victorious, even snatching the gem offered to him for smashing all the boxes. Ed leaned back in his chair with a relieved sigh and a laugh, throwing his arms in the air with one hand still clutching his PlayStation controller. The viewer smiled and cheered with him. They were rather impressed that this was only his 4th episode and he was already on a level like Cold Hard Crash.

“Alright, fucking  _ finally!  _ Echo, Query, commence the victory music!” He announced and the viewer saw a note at the bottom of the screen in pink letters: “Alright, just for you buddy.”

With that,  _ We Are The Champions _ started playing, but not the right one. This version seemed to be made using one of those screaming chickens. They burst out in laughter, the chickens being too powerful. The music continued for a few moments before Ed spoke again.

“Alright, cut the music, we don’t want a copyright strike.” 

Another line of text appeared, this one in red: “Shouldn’t be a problem :D” before the music stopped. 

Ed adjusted his glasses before speaking again, “We got through that one pretty quickly, just like I said, first try and all, so let’s move on to Bee-Having, shall we?  We already completed Ruination in an earlier episode, so Bee-Having would be the last level here. ” 

Two lines of text appeared this time, both editors ‘speaking’ at once: “Um…” in pink and “Do we have to?” in red. 

The viewer muttered an “uh oh” of their own as the loading screen mask blinked and smiled at them. Ed seemed determined, but if the beginning of the video was any indication, that hope would soon be dashed.

He entered the portal that dropped him off at the start of the level, putting a grin on his face before walking through the door.

“Oh, it’s another one of these levels, okay, this shouldn’t be too-” he was cut off when a lumberjack immediately ran towards him and smacked him into the ground with a hammer, killing Crash instantly. Ed closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, sighing out, “Okay, that one didn’t count.”  He started over, this time avoiding the initial attacker, spinning him out of existence before he moved forward. He jumped over a pit and attempted to jump on a Spitter Plant. Emphasis on  _ attempted _ . He looked confused when the plant bounced him upwards, as opposed to splattering on the dirt. 

“Well...alright then,” he muttered, moving on and picking up a mask as he went. He managed to keep it as he ran past the next threat, narrowly avoiding a hammer strike. He looked smug as he jumped to the next platform, spinning to try and destroy the beehive waiting there. The bees, as expected, were not fond of this and stung  him, causing him to lose the one mask he just gained.  Ed seemed undeterred, pressing forward as if he hadn’t just lost a precious commodity. 

“We’ll find another one, no problem,” he spoke directly to the camera, not noticing that he was slowly being stung to death by another swarm of bees (which his editors had helpfully zoomed in on). “We don’t even need those things anyways, cause we’re not going to get hurt…” he trailed off as he looked back and noticed he had been transported to his last checkpoint. “Hey, why am I back here?” 

Ed continued, apparently not stopping to think about what could have sent him backwards, and bypassing the various hives. He appeared focused this time… until he ran into a wall of electricity, not sliding under it. 

“I DUCKED THERE,” he exclaimed, dropping his controller as he screamed, “I ducked there, I wouldn’t have been hit by something so STUPID, the god damn buttons aren’t working!” at this, the blame counter went up to 11. Ed sighed and sat forward, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses, “I need a new controller,” he muttered . 

Pink text read: “Didn’t you just buy a new controller, like… 3 days ago?” 

The viewer hoped that was just sarcasm, but doubted it slightly. Ed kept his head down for a few more moments before starting again, this time visibly frustrated as he left the checkpoint. He was silent at first, but started mouthing something to himself. The further he got into the level, the louder he became, repeating “it’s fine, I’m fine,” to himself, and he looked close to the area he was in the beginning clip.

“I’m fine, it’s fine, this is going great-” at this point the viewer lowered their volume drastically in preparation for a tantrum “-wait nO STOP! FUCK!!” 

As Crash was slowly stung to death, Ed pushed away from his chair and fell to the floor dramatically, curling into a small(ish) ball. He didn’t say a word, and the viewer almost adjusted their volume before they heard a shout cut through the silence.  The camera zoomed in on his pained face, brows knit together and eyes squinted as his mouth hung open with his shout of agony. He smacked the floor a few times, the camera following the movement before he stood up and brought himself back to his chair.

“Okay… Let’s try this again,” He sighed, rubbing a hand on his face and picking up his controller. The viewer was watching intently, waiting for him to either finish the level or have another tantrum.

After he finally finished the level, he wasted no time in moving on. This time, he took his time. He really took his sweet ass time because the boss, N. Gin, only died after about 5 minutes. The marsupial spun and posed as N. Gin flew to the depths of space screaming. Ed only let out a huff of relieved laughter, carding his fingers through whatever hair he could get to with his headphones sitting on his head.

“Alright, um, that’s finally over. It would have been over the first time if this damn bandicoot had jumped when I held the button,” Ed held the controller up, as if the movement needed the demonstration, and the button counter in the corner changed to _ “11.5???” _ . “Once again, I’m sorry for the shorter video, but I’ve got things to do today,” the viewer doubted that based on his earlier comment , “but thank you all for tuning in on my new video, and as always, I will see you all tomorrow. Enigmatical, over and out!”

The viewer decided to stay for the outro, hearing a well-made remix of screams and profanities. They scrolled down after the video finished playing to read a few of the comments. There were definitely a variety of comments as they sorted by most recent. A few of the more eye-catching ones included:

**_connerluthorkent:_ ** _ Watching these videos again after what’s happening with this man now? Amazing. Art. I miss him. _

**_Chierei:_ ** _ Anyone else watching a few months after this upload excited for his upcoming collaboration with that makeup artist? _

**_Apple_Bottom_Greens_:_ ** _ Ah, yes. The before times. Before simp. _

**_Space Cadet Jean:_ ** _ honestly, how could this enigmatical, the man that dramatized everything that happened and constantly made hand gestures, not see that he was bi? no straight man ever has had that much theatrical showmanship. ever. _

They themself didn’t have much free time left, having the usual errands to run and whatnot (things they assumed Ed never did himself), otherwise they would watch another video. This Enigmatical seemed quite interesting,  as Ed didn’t appear to be the type to act so sporadic and angry . And, looking at these comments, there was a lot more to look forward to, as this seemed to be one of his older videos.

They clicked to the next video to save it under their ‘Watch Later’ list before shutting off their phone. They’ll have to remember to watch it after their errands were run. They knew they would continue to think about it for the rest of the day, but they didn’t mind. They could tell that  _ this _ was going to be fun.


	2. Chapter 2

“Thank you all for tuning in on my new video, and as always, I will see you all tomorrow. Enigmatical, over and out!”

He watched himself salute to the camera before his outro sequence played, plugging his social media and another random video from his channel. The song in the background was the same as usual. It was a remix a fan of his had made a few months ago that was a compilation of his rage exclamations over trap style music.

All was fine and dandy. This video got its usual over-twenty million views and an incredibly positive like-to-dislike ratio, but there was just one problem…

It was #2 on the trending page. Only #2. With how well this video had been doing, he really expected it to get to the top of the trending page. He didn’t know if he felt disappointed or angry about it. He found himself scrolling through the trending page to see what  _ fucker _ took the place he felt that he most righteously deserved after all the hard work he and his team put into it.

The videos there were the same as always— a wide variety of topics ranging from shitty life hacks to educational videos. He recognized a few of the channels: Selina Kyle, a subreddit narrator,  _ itsjimmyandharvey _ , a stunt channel his roommates had,  _ SuperValeskaBros _ , a prank channel hosted by Jerome and Jeremiah, and _ Elements Of Fear _ , a channel that taught chemistry at around a high school level run by Dr. Crane and his son Jonathan.

None of those were in the top spot. The #1 video was uploaded by a channel called  _ Royal Insanity _ . The thumbnail featured a couple applying makeup on each other’s faces, though the male looked too disinterested in her for them to be an actual couple.

The woman, Barbara, was trying to make the man sit still while poking at him with an eyeliner pen.  Barbara was Jim’s ex, so he recognized her right away. Seems like she was doing well.

“Really Ozzie, this would not be so difficult if you’d stop moving!” the man flinched again and this time she hit him in the nose. He turned to face the camera head-on and  _ oh.  _ Even with a black splotch on his nose and an increasingly annoyed look on his face, he was striking. He had piercing green eyes ringed with dark (if messily applied) makeup, and a spray of freckles over his nose. 

“Well, if you would pay more attention, you wouldn’t be jabbing me with the pencil!” 

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he looked stunning, his voice sounded even more captivating than any of his distinctive physical features. Oswald took a rag and scrubbed furiously at the smudge of eyeliner on his nose.  Ed couldn't help but giggle at the display. Even through the scrubbing, the little smudge stayed put like a beauty mark. Barbara tried not to laugh at the angry look on Oswald’s face.

“Look at it this way, it lives up to its waterproof name!” she proclaimed, showing the expensive looking pencil to the camera.  It was Louboutin and Ed remembered seeing it on the internet a while back, marketed at $75 a pen.  _ Wow, these guys sure don’t settle for the cheap stuff _ , he thought to himself. Oswald took a final look into his handheld mirror before taking a deep breath.

“Let’s just keep going, shall we?” he muttered before taking up a brush and dusting something over Barbara’s nose. 

Ed wasn’t sure what else was said throughout the video. It had likely been more banter and makeup tips but, more often than not, Ed caught himself just staring at Oswald and only listening to his side of the conversations. By the end of it all, the pair of them had fixed the other’s mistakes — including the little black smudge — and looked ready to go out to whatever social event the look was made for (something about a grand opening?) but Ed hadn’t learned anything. Sure, glamour tended to attract viewers, and Oswald surely kept people’s attention, but they couldn’t be  _ that _ much better than him. He would just have to watch another, to see what the real draw was. Know your enemy and all, right? Ed clicked through to the next video.

A few videos later, Ed was startled by a knock at his door. Upon opening it, he found Jim on the other side, looking a little apprehensive. The two stood in an awkward silence for a moment before Ed spoke up. 

“I didn’t hear you and Harvey come in. I thought your shoot would end up running late.” It was then that Ed noticed Jim’s watch that read 11:53 pm.

“Yeah, uh, it did. We’ve actually been home for awhile now… we were thinking of ordering food, maybe having a few beers before bed. Did… you want to join us?”

“Oh- uh, sure. Sorry, I must have lost track of time…” he sheepishly rubbed at the back of his neck, shifting so his form blocked his computer screen from Jim’s vision, “I know that doesn’t sound like me, but it happens sometimes…”

Jim gave Ed a tired look, but smiled regardless and nodded, “Happens to the best of us. But you’ve gotta take better care of yourself. No need to pull such late hours tonight, right? ”

“Yeah, but I’m fine, I can have a few drinks with you guys. What are you ordering?” Ed straightened up.

“We’re just ordering a pizza. We were discussing the possibility of chinese takeout, but we figured you would get frustrated trying to fumble with the chopsticks,” Jim let out a small laugh that Ed reciprocated easily,  “Anything specific you want?” 

“Just avoid-”

“Yeah, I remember. Avoid onions.” 

When they reached the living room, Harvey had already been sitting at the couch with an opened 12-pack on the coffee table. Harvey looked up with a fake expression of shock, “Wow, it’s alive!”

“Yeah, I’m alive, Harvey. Just lost track of time, uh…” he wanted to say something other than the truth, “... editing a video all day. Echo and Query wanted me to help with this one, so… Yeah.”

Harvey nodded, a sarcastic look on his face. “Editing, huh, is that what they call that game nowadays?”

“Harvey-” Jim started.

“No, I’m just saying, if it is, I’m glad you remembered to plug in your headphones this time, that’s all.”

“That was for a video!” he sputtered, making Harvey laugh good naturedly. 

“I’m just messing with you, kid. You need a drink, come on, sit down.” 

Ed accepted the can offered to him before moving to sit, awkwardly arranging his limbs on the too-small couch. 

“Alright, what kind of pizza are we getting?” Jim spoke as he pulled out his phone. Ed took a sip of his beer, preparing for the discourse that he knew was about to go down between Jim and Harvey.

“I’m not sure… Ooh, how about anchovies?” Harvey suggested, failing to hide his smile. Ed shot him a glare.

“No, Harvey, we’re not getting anchovies,” Jim pulled the phone away from his face to talk to the other two men on the couch, “Ed, do you have any input?”

“I just don’t want onions on it…” he wondered in the back of his mind how Oswald liked his pizza, if he liked pizza at all. He stopped the thought before it could blossom, turning away to hide the pink tinge on his cheeks.

“Let’s get extra onions on the pizza!” Harvey spoke up once more and Ed reached for the closest thing— which happened to be the poor TV remote— to throw at Harvey. Jim caught his arm before he could make the throw, but Ed still tried to make himself look threatening with the TV remote held in the air.

“Harvey!” Jim hissed at him in a low voice.

“What? I’m joking!”

“Yes, I know you’re joking, but he doesn’t know you’re joking!”

“Well now I know you’re joking but I’m still gonna hit you,” Ed muttered, lowering his arm despite his claims. Harvey, for his part, had the decency to pretend he felt threatened.

“Alright, fine, how about we get just sausage and pepperoni on the pizza?” Jim brought the group back on topic.

“Damn, not even the cheese?” Harvey acted surprised and this time Ed shouted with Jim, equally fed up.

“HARVEY!” They shouted in unison.

After Harvey busted out into laughter, they sat in silence, sipping at their drinks as they waited for Jim to finish rattling off his credit card information to the employee on the other end of the call. When Jim finally hung up, Ed was the first to speak.

“So, how was the shoot today?” Ed smiled, already feeling the buzz from only the one can. 

“Well, no one broke their arm this time, so that’s a plus,” Harvey butt in, trying once again not to laugh. Jim rolled his eyes. 

“It was barely a fracture, it doesn’t count!”  Ed spoke up defensively.

“And, to be fair, he didn’t break his arm on the shoot, he broke it afterwards falling down the stairs,” Jim said.

“It’s not my fault those concrete stairs are that steep!”  Ed protested again, louder than he meant to.

“We know, Ed, it’s fine, Harvey’s just being Harvey,” Jim tossed an empty can at Harvey’s head, who ducked easily out of the way, “So what’d Echo and Query want your help with?”

It was a good thing Ed’s thinking process was still as fast as it normally was because he needed to think of a video game name before they got suspicious of his true whereabouts on the internet. He should tell them of his most recent video in case they went to check later.

“Oh, it was just a quick lookover on a video they edited to see if it was okay, I was playing  _ Among The Sleep _ and they wanted my input on some of their edits,” the excuse may not be totally believable, but Jim and Harvey didn’t know that Echo and Query never showed him the finished videos before uploading them.

Jim nodded, knowing a little about the game, “Right, the one with the baby running from his mom? Is that… are you doing okay with it?”

Ed shifted, his expression falling, “It’s not something I’d really like to talk about, but I’ve been handling it well… Thank you for asking,”  the room fell into a tense silence for a few moments before  Harvey spoke up.

“I personally prefer games like  _ Resident Evil _ . I like that you can fight back against zombies and evil corporations.”

“Yeah, Resident Evil is a fun series,” Ed nodded in agreement. He heard the doorbell ring and Jim was the first to stand from the couch to open the door. He returned a few seconds later with their pizza, giving it a dramatic drop onto the coffee table, making sure not to knock over the open cans of beer. The awkwardness dissipated as the three dug in.

“Whoa, slow down, buddy, you’re gonna get the hiccups,” Jim piped in. Ed, realizing he got too caught up in finally eating something for the first time in the past seven hours, immediately slowed down.

“Sorry, I just didn’t realize how hungry I was until I started eating.”

Jim laughed lightly, “Yeah, I can tell.”

“You just need to stop playing HuniePop all day, give your twig and berries a break and eat something,” Harvey poked fun once more.

“I wasn’t playing HuniePop all day! I told you, I was looking over a video…” Ed mumbled over the last part, blushing once more as he averted his gaze and cracked open another can. 

“You really don’t have to look over those as much as you do,” Jim chastised, “You have editors for a reason.”

“I know, but I want to,” Ed responded monotonously, now starting to get tipsy. Not drunk, just tipsy. 

The more he drank, the less he could stop himself from thinking about Oswald. He had only just heard about him, but he was just… too intriguing.  Not just his features or his content, but his personality was unlike that of most beauty gurus — Blunt, snarky, and never too enthused about the various products he used. Add that to a dark and deadpan humor  and Oswald was the most unique and interesting makeup artist he’d seen in his eight-year long career.

“Hey, Jim…” he found himself speaking before he could stop.  Jim looked at him with a raised eyebrow, a signal to continue. Ed wanted to cover the blunder with a riddle or some stupid trivia, anything really, but he heard the words leave his mouth before he could think of what else to say. 

“Do you know anything about Barbara’s roommate?”

“Barbara… Kean? My ex girlfriend?” Jim’s face fell, while Harvey winced a little in sympathy. “I know a little about him. Why do you ask?”

Ed felt his mind blank at that, all the potential lies or half truths he could tell flooding into being at once, “Uh, well, when I was looking over my video earlier, I noticed hers had done slightly better, and so I watched it and I saw she had a roommate, and I was curious, that’s all,” he stammered as he spoke, hoping that neither of his friends picked up on it.

Jim looked confused, putting down his beer before speaking again, “I mean, I don’t know much to tell you about. He’s just a friend of hers. They started living together a little after she and I started dating.”

“They aren’t… too similar, are they?” Ed remembered Jim coming home and telling horror stories of Barbara’s behavior. He didn’t want to think of Oswald that way. Not that it mattered if he was. 

Harvey snorted from under his slouch hat , which he had placed over his face the second Barbara was mentioned, “The only similarity between the two of them is their interests in men.”

“So… Oswald is gay?”  Ed tried to sound passive, even though he was excited his instinct had proved correct.  He had a hunch, but now it was confirmed.

“I mean, I’m not  _ certain _ but-” 

“Yes. Trust me, the answer is yes,” Harvey cut Jim off and Ed felt himself start to grin. He stopped himself, but not soon enough, as Jim raised an eyebrow and gave a rare smirk.

“Why the sudden interest, Ed?”

“I told you, I just-”

“No, seriously,” Harvey removed the hat from his face and sat forward, “Why do you care about Cobblepot all of a sudden?”

Ed stared for a few moments, mouth agape as he tried to think of a new excuse. Jim’s expression softened as he saw the confusion playing across Ed’s features. 

“Oh… you’re serious, aren’t you?” Jim asked. He sounded sincere but Ed wasn’t sure what about.

“I am?” He tried to avoid sounding too confused.

“You’ve got a thing for Pengy, huh?” Harvey looked like he was trying not to laugh. Ed felt a spark of indignation at that.

“I do not! I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Oh I can tell you’re curious, brother. Listen, be whoever or date whoever.” Harvey stood up, swaying a little from fatigue and the alcohol , “I will say this, though. Don’t get too set on him, because there’s only one guy I’ve known him to like and you’re not exactly  _ him,  _ if you get what I’m saying.”

Ed averted his gaze towards the ground as Harvey announced his need for sleep and disappeared up the staircase. Jim stood as well, looking back at Ed for a moment.

“Don’t listen to him, Ed. He’s just an asshole,” Jim placed his hand on Ed’s shoulder and shook it lightly in a lighthearted and comforting manner, “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow. And you better sleep tonight!”

Ed looked at him with a smile, hoping that was reassuring enough for Jim. Right now, all he could think about was what Harvey said. He didn’t even feel interested in Oswald like  _ that,  _ but something about the way Harvey’s words were spoken felt like a slap to the face. 

People really did enjoy his on-screen persona more than his actual self. People wanted to see The Riddler— a nickname his viewers had given him. A confident and sly man with pride, not Edward Nygma, an awkward, jittery loser.  Not that it mattered, because Oswald, while interesting, was not drawing Ed in  _ that _ way. And he would prove it. In the morning though, because the alcohol coupled with finally having eaten was starting to make him tired...

Eh, he could go to bed in a few minutes. Maybe he could watch a few videos on his phone and  _ then  _ go to his room. He tried to get comfortable on the couch, stretching out his limbs and laying back as he pulled up YouTube and searched for  _ Royal Insanity. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy gay panic time

Jim was the first to wake up that morning, as usual. He looked at the clock: 5:30 am. Great. The sun was just starting to peek out over the horizon, leaving a pale rosy glow in the room. He dressed quickly, throwing on joggers and a t-shirt before going downstairs. He stopped at the bottom. Ed was sprawled out on the couch, limbs hanging off the edge and resting on the back cushions. His face was buried in a throw pillow at the edge and Jim was about to panic before he saw his shoulders rise and fall. Okay, he was still alive, but very much asleep on the couch, which wasn’t at all normal for Ed. The couch was far too short for someone of his height to ever be comfortable.

“Uh, Harvey?” Jim called out back up the stairs. He heard a loud groan.

“What?” The man in question yelled back groggily.

“I think we’ve got an issue.”

“Yeah, the issue is that I’m awake at this ungodly hour.”

Fair point. Jim didn’t respond, walking over and hearing a faint voice. He could recognize that voice, but it wasn’t loud enough for it to quite click exactly who it was. Ed’s phone was resting on the floor, having fallen at some point during the night. He gently picked it up and looked at the screen, seeing a large pop-up for a 10% battery warning. What truly caught his attention though was the video Ed had left playing; a Royal Insanity tutorial, one in the playlist of Oswald’s solo videos. Jim sighed before turning off the phone and walking back upstairs to talk to Harvey.

“Ed fell asleep on the couch,” Jim said as he slowly creaked open Harvey’s door. The man looked at him like a bear waking up from hibernation too early.

“Okay, and?”

“He fell asleep watching Oswald’s solo videos for RI.”

Harvey sighed, sitting up and rubbing at his temples, “That kid, I swear to god…is he still trying to say he’s not interested?”

Jim shook his head, “He was still asleep when I got downstairs, so he hasn’t said much of anything.”

Harvey blinked owlishly at that, “Well. That’s-”

“Not like Ed? I’m aware, none of this is like Ed. What do we do?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do we do?’ Nothing to do but let this pass like it did with that one fake girl he liked before.”

“You mean his ‘Canadian Roblox girlfriend’? The one that tried to tell him he needed to Venmo her two grand in order to buy a plane ticket to visit him?”

“Exactly. All we have to do is prevent a catastrophe like _that_ and he’ll be over it in no time,” Harvey paused to yawn before continuing, “Now, if that’s all you’re worried about, can I please go back to bed?”

Jim rolled his eyes but nodded his assent. Harvey flopped back unceremoniously as Jim left the room, stopping when he got back to the living room to plug Ed’s phone in before leaving the house for his morning jog. 

* * *

Ed peeled his eyes open slowly, squinting at the offending light shining through the window. That was one thing he didn’t like about the placement of the couch, it was placed in such a way where the sun will shine directly in his face through the living room window when he’s laying down. Another thing he disliked about sleeping on the couch was how much his back ached when he woke up. Ed really wasn’t sure how Harvey could stand it as often as he did. He looked for his phone on the couch and floor before finding it charging on the end table near his head. Though he had no memory of plugging it in, he paid it no mind, especially not when he saw the time. Missed messages from Echo and Query were also present.

 **_childish_damfino:_ ** _hey, we’re up and ready when you are._

 **_childish_damfino:_ ** _Ed?_

 **_childish_damfino:_ ** _you up?_

 **_DVdaMVP:_ ** _dude, where are you?_

 **_DVdaMVP:_ ** _do i need to call your roommates?_

He had a planned stream in an hour. He quickly messaged the girls that he was awake and unplugged his phone to take it with him before running upstairs to get ready, struggling to do so with the distracting pounding in his head. He shouldn’t have agreed to the drinks last night.

About half an hour later, Ed sat in front of his computer and video called his two mods. 

“Well, look who finally decided to show up,” Echo’s voice rang out first, sarcastic and slightly annoyed. Ed tried not to let it bother him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I overslept, I was up late last night with Jim and Harvey.”

“Wait a minute, you actually slept?” Query’s voice joined in, amused and incredulous. Echo snorted a laugh at that, apparently calmed by her girlfriend’s lack of panic. Ed breathed a sigh of relief before continuing.

“Yes, it happens occasionally. We were drinking and I fell asleep on the couch watching videos-”

“Heh, lightweight,” Echo’s voice interrupted him, along with Query’s giggling. He gave them a moment before he continued speaking. 

“...In any case, I have a new hyperfixation, if you want to hear about it.”

“Ed, I love you dearly, but if it’s another shit game like the last one, I’m gonna lose my mind,” Echo answered drily.

“What she means is we’d love to hear about it,” Query spoke over her. Ed took that as permission to continue. 

“Well, it’s actually makeup.” The girl’s end of the call was silent before they both spoke up.

“...Oh?”

“It’s what now?”

“Did you know green cosmetics used to be made out of arsenic and killed those who wore it for too long at a time?” Ed smiled. It might have been a bit grotesque of a fact, but it was morbidly _him_.

“How do you know this? When did you learn this?” Echo sounded confused, almost yelling into the microphone.

“... Yesterday.” Echo didn’t respond for a few moments, and Ed almost gave out another fact before Query spoke up.

“So what brought the sudden interest in makeup?” she asked, prodding gently to continue the conversation. 

“Well…” Ed wasn’t sure he wanted to discuss this again, lest the girls get the wrong idea as well. But most likely they would know what he meant. They understood these sorts of things, right? “I started watching Royal Insanity yesterday…”

“You mean the makeup channel?”

“The one that ended up at #1 yesterday?”

“The same,” he responded to both of their questions, “And I just found it really interesting is all. After all, they had to get to that spot somehow, right?” Neither of them responded so Ed rushed to continue his explanation, “And it’s not weird or anything, I’m not watching out of a _huge_ interest, it was just research turned into hyperfixation-”

“Ed this doesn’t have anything to do with the pretty blonde who co-hosts, does it? Cause if it does-”

“No!” Ed screeched, before trying to control his volume in case Harvey wasn’t up, “No, this has nothing to do with Barbara.”

“Really?” Echo asked, now genuinely curious, “Cause I wouldn’t blame you if it did. Just, you know, you live with her ex, so I’d advise you to be careful-”

“Really. Barbara isn’t who has my interest.”

“And Oswald is?” Query responded teasingly. Ed didn’t answer, and he heard her start snickering and nudging Echo. Echo sighed, mumbling what sounded like ‘ _motherfucker_ ’ under her breath and taking out her wallet, handing Query a twenty before putting it back. 

“I’m sorry, what’s happening?” Ed asked in confusion.

Query smirked, “We just placed bets a few years ago about whether or not you were going to finally admit to your bisexuality by the end of the decade.”

Ed’s face went red at her accusation, “I-It’s not like that! He’s just an interesting person, th-that’s all! I’m not bi!” Echo went to take back the bill before Query moved it out of her reach.

“Wait wait wait, maybe pan then? We agreed that’d count, right?” she asked her partner, who begrudgingly nodded. Ed shook his head. 

“I’m not either of those things. I’m straight, I swear.” Query sighed and handed the bill back to Echo, sticking her tongue out at her in the process. Echo smirked as she took it. 

“Remember, he has to admit it, it can’t just be tendencies,” she teased, poking at her now pouting girlfriend. 

“There’s nothing to admit to! I’m straight, and I can prove it,” Ed protested, trying not to squeak. Echo raised an eyebrow at that, with Query tilting her head in curiosity. 

“And how, pray tell, are you going to do that?” Ed hadn’t thought of that yet, and panicked to think of a solution.

“I’ve had girlfriends!”

Query burst into laughter at that while Echo looked at him unimpressed. 

“Girlfriend, Ed. You had a girlfriend in highschool,” Echo responded, being the only one able to as Query was too caught up in trying to breathe.

“Isabella was-”

“A bot, Ed. She was a bot, at best, made by a catfish, she wanted 2 grand from you for fuck’s sake.”

“She was still a girlfriend…” Ed muttered. Query finally calmed down enough to speak.

“No, she wasn’t a girlfriend. This-” she grabbed Echo by her shoulders and shook her gently, “- is a girlfriend. Loving, caring, and enjoys being goofy with me. ‘Isabella’ was a catfish that, what, sent you nudes she claimed were her own in hopes of getting money from you? Claimed to be infatuated with you and everything you do?”

Ed fell silent. He didn’t know how to respond to that one.

Echo pushed Query’s hands off of her shoulders, smiling at her for a moment before turning back to the male with a serious look, “Ed, face it, we’ve known you for how long? Ten years now? We know you, like _know_ know you, and you’ve told us everything. We get that this sort of thing can be hard for you, but you’re just so stubborn about it sometimes. Yeah, she happened to act just like Kristen, but she wasn’t… real, in a sense.”

Just as Ed was starting to think too much about it, he heard a ding. He looked at his phone and it was his five minute notification before the stream started. He bid the girls a hasty goodbye, assuring them he would still be on time before hanging up. He sighed, knowing that he didn’t have enough time to fully get into character before the stream, and resolved to do his best impression of… himself until the stream could be over with. 

He seemed to be doing well too, until he lost the first round. Losing, though rare, did still happen, so this wasn’t the problem, it was his apparent lack of reaction that tipped his viewers off. He started the next round without so much as a curse and his chat immediately flooded with questions about his well-being, half jokes asking for the whereabouts of “The Real Riddler”. Ed rubbed his eyes under his glasses before he spoke. 

“No, guys, I am fine, really. Just something...weird happened yesterday, I’ll be fine, I’m just thinking a lot about it,” he explained before the next match started. He saw the chat explode with more questions, one viewer jumping at him and asking what could possibly weird _him_ out. He frowned, ready to tell the person in question to shut up when the match officially began and the thought left his mind entirely. 

Five matches later, he had managed to lower the scores of all his various teams, accrued a fair amount of nasty messages from both sides and his chat was still asking after his well being. At this rate, Ed wasn’t sure how he was supposed to manage all these expectations whenever he was killed, yet again, and he couldn’t stop the frustrated scream that escaped him. His viewers stopped talking for half a second before flooding in with messages of “HE’S BACK!” “the king returns!” “Finally some good fucking content!” and he had to agree with them. 

‘Took you long enough to show up,’ he thought to himself as he continued, sending a barrier forward to block the opposing team. 

_Isn’t my fault you’re too busy thinking about boys in makeup to focus,_ his brain responded, sarcastic as ever. Ed ignored the quip, pushing forward to shoot one of his opponents. He almost fell off the edge of a higher elevation he maintained but he managed to quickly fly back up just in time. His tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth slightly as he ran along the path he set for himself, having memorized the map. He knew he was being chased and continued to ignore the chat half-fangirling (and fanboying, he didn’t mind) and half-yelling at him.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, everything is fine…” he spoke to himself as he turned a sharp corner and came face-to-face with the opponent that was chasing him just seconds ago. He didn’t have time to react and died instantly. Taking a deep breath, he tried to contain how upset it made him.

“... It’s not fine, I lied. I’m sorry. It’s not -” he slammed his fist onto his desk, almost hitting his keyboard, but thankfully, he missed it by a hair, “- fucking fine!” He ran a hand through his hair, paying no mind to his headphones being knocked off. “These fucking kids… on their trash team… are gonna make me lose! My! Mind!” he punctuated the last three words by banging his head on the desk, groaning a bit before sitting up. “But we’re gonna keep going,” he muttered before beginning to move his character again.

Mercifully, his team managed to win the round, making his teammates send congratulations and well-dones into their text chat for once, and Ed couldn’t help but smirk. The victory, coupled with his own chat’s frenzy, made him almost feel like he was back to normal. Until, that is, he remembered why he was so distracted beforehand. He knew he was about to infodump again, but couldn’t stop himself from blurting out another random fact.

“Did you know that Roman women used to use belladonna drops to make their pupils look larger under the influence so that they would look sexier?”

He muttered a _‘damn it’_ under his breath as he realized he just said that. On stream. His chat was silent and he tried to focus on the game when it blew up again with an assortment of “Wtf?”, “Uh…”, and “Ah shit, here we go again”. 

“No, we’re not going down into an infodump again, I promise I can focus,” he answered the last one quietly before immediately getting hit with a projectile. “That one’s on you guys for distracting me, how dare you.” He shot back at his newfound enemy, knocking him down with a similar attack before moving forward towards their objective point.

“Did you guys know that green dye for wool used to be made out of cat’s urine back in the 15th century?” Ed spoke, breaking the long silence he created in order to concentrate. He didn’t want it to be another weird vanity fact, but he rolled with it. One member in particular in the chat, tinytrashlandperson, responded with: “Hey, Ed, what’s your sweater made out of again?”

The comment prompted Ed to look down at his green sweater, 80% acrylic and 20% wool, “Oh…” He scrunched his nose in a rare expression of disgust, “... Ew.”

Chat blew up calling him out on the fact that he never washes his sweater anyways and Ed inhaled sharply, trying to focus on the match, “Hey, I wash this sweater weekly, I’m not stupid.”

“But you wear it every single video, buddy,” trashland spoke out once more.

“So? I still wash it.”

“That’s not the point, but okay,” trashland continued, “You do you, man. I’m just glad I can’t smell it from the other side of the screen. I’m sure it reeks of sweat by now.” 

Ed discreetly muted the chat in an attempt to refocus, but was admittedly hung up on the comments. What if he did smell? What if he met Oswald and was wearing the sweater? Why did it matter? He couldn’t keep streaming if he was about to spiral, so he decided on an alternative course of action.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, pretending to answer it before holding it to his ear and speaking, “Hello?...Uh huh… yeah… yeah, okay… I’ll be right there,” he mumbled, doing his best to hide the phone’s screen as he “hung up”, before addressing his viewers, “I have to leave early, something came up so, uh, bye, over and out,” he gave his usual salute before ending the stream, burying his head in his hands. It only took thirty seconds for his phone to start blowing up for real this time. 

**_childish_damfino:_ ** _Ed_

 **_childish_damfino:_ ** _wtf was that?_

 **_DVdaMVP:_ ** _we saw your phone reflected in your glasses, no one called you. What gives?_

Ed wasn’t quite sure what to tell them. He wanted to leave the messages alone, answer them when he had a clearer head, but knew that to leave the girls worrying for the second time in twenty-four hours would be cruel. So he went with the next best option. 

**_?_Enigmatical_¿:_ ** _I don’t know, chat was just getting to me ig_

 **_DVdaMVP:_ ** _why didn’t you say something we have a ban button_

 **_childish_damfino:_ ** _people call you worse than that pretty much daily, why is this a problem for you today?_

 **_?_Enigmatical_¿:_ ** _I don’t want to worry you guys or anything, but I have a tendency to spiral_

 **_DVdaMVP:_ ** _we know but… is that what’s happening?_

Ed wasn’t sure what exactly to say. The girls were trying to help but… if he told them the truth, it’d be worse on all of them. 

**_?_Enigmatical_¿:_ ** _I’m probably just overthinking. Should be fine :)_

 **_childish_damfino:_ ** _you suck at lying on the spot._

Ed didn’t bother waiting for Query’s response, choosing instead to turn off notifications and curl up under the quilt on his bed. Once settled, he opened a random puzzle game he kept on his phone, sighing in relief at how the familiar motions of using brainpower to solve complex problems distracted him.


	4. Chapter 4

When Jim returned from his jog— which turned out to be him calling Harvey to do a video shoot at a great filming site he encountered— it was already about 3 pm. He figured he should have stayed out of the house that long anyways and let Ed do his thing, but it was surprisingly quiet when they opened the front door.

“Ed?” Jim called towards the stairs. Silence answered him. “Edward!” he yelled again. No response. 

“Dude, you left your headphones unplugged again!” Harvey called, trying to provoke his roommate. Nothing. He exchanged a worried look with Jim before heading warily towards the stairs. 

The two ascended slowly, on the lookout for any signs that Ed had left the house (or perhaps kidnapped), finally stopping outside his door and knocking softly. Once again, they heard no response. They shared a look and opened the door, peeking in. They saw Ed laying in bed, burrito-ed in his quilt and staring at the wall with a blank expression. 

“Uh, Ed? You okay?” Harvey asked as he walked towards him, “We were calling you from downstairs and you didn’t answer, and it's not like you to sleep...ever, but especially not-”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Ed interrupted. Jim noticed that he was still in his normal day clothes, glasses poking out from the quilt. His voice sounded strained and he seemed to curl in further on himself. Jim stepped closer as Harvey sat on the bed next to Ed’s legs. 

“Are you sick or something? You sound a little off-”

“I think I’m bi…” Ed whimpered before bursting into tears. Harvey glanced at Jim, bewildered before turning his attention back to Ed. 

“Congratulations? That’s a good thing, I’d think-”

“No you don’t understand, I don’t want to be bi, I don’t want to be more of a freak, and Nina’s gonna owe Diedre money and-”

“You’re not a freak Ed. No more than Nina, or Diedre, or Jim, or… okay, Barbara’s a bit of a freak, but that’s not a bad thing! Being bi doesn’t make you a freak.”

“But my father-”

“Your father is dead. You know what makes you a freak? Listening to dead people.” Harvey tried for a joke, but Jim saw Ed’s eyes widen in apparent fear. He walked towards Ed’s bed, pushing Harvey over and sitting in his place. 

“What Harvey means is, your dad doesn’t matter anymore. He can’t say anything and he can’t hurt you. He was a close-minded asshole.”

Ed glanced up and this time Jim could see how puffy his eyes and cheeks were. He’d been crying like this for hours.  Jim took his glasses, wiping off the tear stains absentmindedly as he continued talking.

“Even if he were still alive, you’re a grown man. You’re allowed to be whoever you want, or like whoever you want. Speaking of, is this about-”

“I don’t want to talk about who it’s about,” Ed’s voice rose uncharacteristically, and Jim raised the hand not holding his glasses in surrender. 

“Okay, you don't have to. Just know that, if you want to, you can,” Jim paused to set the glasses on Ed’s bedside table. “We’ll be here for you either way.”

“I think I’d rather be alone right now if you don’t mind,” Ed mumbled, retreating back into his quilt burrito. Jim was about to protest when Harvey stood from the floor, pulling Jim up with him. 

“We can do space too, we won’t crowd you,” Harvey rushed Jim out the door, practically tossing him by his sleeve before walking out after him. He ducked back in for a quick ‘bye’ before shutting the door. Jim thought he heard Ed mumble a ‘bye’ back as the door shut, but didn’t think on it as Harvey dragged him down the hall and into his room.

“Harv, what the hell?!” he exclaimed, “Ed doesn’t need to be alone right now, even if he wants to be. He’s spiraling, and-”

“And we’ll fix that, but we need an actual plan first. We can’t bumble our way through this, Jim, he’s got trauma for fucks sake!” Jim had to concede there. Even if Ed would talk to them, what were they supposed to say? Not for the first time, Jim wished Ed’s father didn’t loom quite so large in his memories.

“Okay, fine. But what do we  _ do _ ? We can’t just let him stew in that all night while we think of something that may help, we need to figure out what to say-”

“We don’t have to  _ say _ anything. All we have to do is get his mind off of it, turn his brain off, as it were.” 

Jim snorted at that, looking fairly unimpressed at the idea,“Yeah, okay, we’ll get the hyperactive genius to stop thinking, I’m sure that’ll go over great. How do you propose we start?”

Harvey ignored Jim’s sarcasm, smirking at him in a way that Jim knew meant trouble. “We give him something new to think about. A change of scenery, new information, less time to think about father-induced trauma. You understand?” Jim stood frozen for a few moments before answering.

“Nope.”

* * *

Ed was unsure of what time it was. He’d mostly calmed down from his earlier panic, with only the occasional sniffle interrupting his thoughts. His thoughts would drift to Oswald, and the ache in his chest would be replaced by butterflies in his stomach. But then his thoughts would shift back to his father and- well, the metaphorical butterflies died at that point. He thought back to what Jim had said, about how he and Harvey would be willing to listen if he wanted to talk. He didn’t really want to, but maybe it would be a good idea to open up to-

Ed stopped that thought in its tracks when he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, two people running from the sound of it. He started to sit up, looking for his glasses when his door burst open and the light was flipped on. Ed squinted into the light, irritation replacing all the anxiety he had felt prior, and saw a very blurry Harvey and Jim once again invading his room. 

“Rise-and-shine, you sad fuck,” Harvey yelled in a sing-song. Ed burrowed back into his quilt, already uninterested and groaning in protest of the newfound sensory hell. “Don’t be like that Eddie, we’re going out and you’re coming too.”

“Am not,” Ed mumbled into his pillow, “And please stop yelling.” Ed heard footsteps approach the bed and stiffened, ready for his defense to be yanked away. Instead, the approaching person gently peeled the quilt away from his face. Ed opened his eyes again and saw Jim looking down at him, concern clouding his face as it often did. 

“Well, we’re not leaving you here by yourself. Come on, get up and get ready. You need to get out of the house for a while. ”

“Well, I’m not leaving. You guys can go have fun without me.”

“Ed, we’re not leaving without you.”

Ed hadn’t noticed Harvey’s approach, at least not until he leaned between Jim and Ed to whisper at him, completely straightfaced.

“If you aren’t up and ready in five minutes, I will pick you up and carry you outside. Got it?” Ed, knowing better than to tempt fate or his roommate, took his cue to scramble out of bed, smacking Harvey on accident.

“Okay, okay, I’m up!” he shouted before running towards the shared bathroom to wash his face. Harvey looked up at Jim, rubbing the spot where Ed had accidentally hit him. 

“Well… he’s up. And without any blood or fireman's lifts so…”

“It’s not a win yet, we still have to leave the house.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, the trio were making their way towards Gotham’s “nightlife” district, with Jim and Harvey being abnormally cagey about their intentions. Ed had protested that he didn’t feel like drinking, or being in a crowd of mostly strangers, but they had insisted that their destination was “cozy” and that they would be gone for “an hour, at the most”. Ed had his doubts, but kept them to himself, feeling bad enough for having inconvenienced his friends prior. He shivered a bit, having left behind his usual sweater for fear of “smelling”. Hopefully wherever they went was “cozy” enough to fight off the chill of Gotham’s night air. Harvey waved a hand in front of his eyes to try and get his attention. 

“Earth to Ed? Ah, okay good, still with us,” Harvey stopped talking long enough to gesture at the building in front of them, “We’re here.”

Ed saw the gold fishbone in the window and recognized that this was  _ Mooney’s _ ,  a bar Echo and Query had talked about before. Speaking of, he saw a familiar brunette in leather accompanied by a blonde with a peaked cap walking towards them.

“Echo? Query? What are you doing here?” he asked, before realizing that was probably a dumb question.

“We were invited, obviously,” Echo nodded towards Jim and Harvey, “Cause your loser friends said you needed a pick-me-up.”

“So your not loser friends are here to save the day!” Query finished, running forward to throw her arms around Ed. “By the way,” she whispered, “thanks for the twenty.” 

Ed froze, feeling his ears burn red at that. “How did you-” he started to ask before she pulled away. He wondered what all Jim and Harvey had told the girls, but before he could start to spiral again, Jim took charge (as usual).

“Right, so, everyone ready to go inside?” he asked, looking at the gathered group for confirmation. Echo rolled her eyes at that.

“It’s a bar, not a battlefield. Let’s go, Boy Scout.” With that, she dragged Ed and Query into the bar with her. 

Query and Echo immediately melded into the crowd, leaving Ed frozen by the door as Jim and Harvey walked in behind him. The bar was  _ not  _ cozy. It was brightly lit, loud, and decorated with some distinctly colorful flags that even Ed understood. 

“You did  _ not _ mention we were going to a gay bar,” he hissed at them, trying not to be too loud. 

“Just think of it as an experiment. Walk around, talk to other guys, and if you don’t like it, then we can say you’re not bi,” Jim shrugged, “I, of all men, should know how to work through this.”

Ed thought about it for a second. This would be a good way to find out, and Jim  _ was  _ repressed for a while…

“Okay, fine. But I’m not  _ experimenting _ with anyone. ”

Harvey laughed at that, “Good, I don’t want to hear any science happening tonight.” With that, Harvey and Jim also joined the crowd at the bar, leaving Ed alone by the door . He knew that it would upset not only his roommates but Echo and Query as well if he left, so he sighed deeply as he searched for his own space.

His own space ended up being the bar table with a stool to slouch in. He looked around and noticed he didn’t quite have the right attire. Everyone else was in obnoxious suits and leather, but Ed had settled with a regular dress shirt and tie. A bartender walked over and looked at Ed with a strange look.

"New here?" They asked. Ed nodded, embarrassed. The bartender gave him a soft smile, "Don't worry, you'll warm up quickly. What can I get you?"

"Um… Do you have anything green?"

"Strange request, but we do indeed have green drinks. We have Grasshoppers and Midori Sours. A Midori has harder liquor than a Grasshopper, but it looks like a highlighter."

Ed looked around, spotting various patrons dancing and grinding with each other. If he was going to do this, he’d definitely need to loosen up. He took a deep breath before making his selection, “I guess I’ll try a Midori Sour.”

“Coming right up, sir,” they said before walking away to prepare the drink. Ed waited patiently as he continued to look around.

There were a couple of men in the middle of the dance floor dancing like they were in a Disney movie, moving in tandem and revolving around each other. Ed would never be able to do that, he had two left feet when it came to dancing. Still, that didn’t stop him from thinking about Oswald dancing with him like that. One man dipped the other as they kissed and Ed had to look away, cheeks red. The bartender came back with his drink and they weren’t lying, it did look like a highlighter. It was in a cocktail glass with a small cherry floating on the top of it.

“Thank you,” Ed muttered as they walked away. He took a sip and immediately felt the burn, but that was really the only thing bad about it. It tasted fruity and he could barely taste the alcohol.  He turned to leave the crowded bar and immediately ran into another man, nearly spilling the neon liquid down the front of his shirt. 

“Hey, watch it tall… ass… hey, aren’t you-?”

“I gotta go, sorry for bumping you,” Ed interrupted, maneuvering around him and practically running towards one of the emptier walls of the bar. Being recognized wasn’t something he was unused to, but this was  _ not _ how he wanted to come out.  _ If _ he came out. He made it to a corner seat that was mostly unpopulated, sitting and sighing in relief when no one gave him a second glance .

“Okay, it was one person, can’t be that bad,” he whispered to himself. Once he got comfortable once again, his drink was gone and he saw a man in a black turtleneck and an iridescent leather blazer, slacks made from a similar material. The man in question was bald with dramatic makeup that complimented his outfit. He noticed Ed looking at him and walked over with a glint in his eye.

“Hey there, you look pretty lonely,” he rested his elbow  against the back of Ed’s seat.

“You could say that,” Ed responded, trying not to sound too gloomy, “My friends all ditched me as soon as we came in.”

The bald man cooed sympathetically down at him, “Aw, well that’s okay. I’m gonna be your friend now, come on,” with that, he grabbed Ed by the elbow and pulled him towards the dancefloor.

Ed protested half-heartedly, “I don’t even know your name!”

“I’m Victor Zsasz,” the man called over his shoulder, “And yourself?”

“Just Ed is fine,” Ed answered, hesitant to give his full name.

“Well, Just-Ed, now that we know each other, are we gonna dance or what?” Ed briefly considered whether saying yes was a good idea, before deciding that an experiment couldn’t work without actual testing. 

“Victor, I can’t dance,” he protested once more, second-guessing himself, “Especially not to music like this.”

Victor looked at the DJ for a moment and Ed followed his gaze toward the woman with green peach fuzz for hair in a glittery green suit jacket. She definitely had a theme. Victor looked back at him with a smile, “Ah, DJ Vile. She has a good mix of songs that are easy to follow along to.  Trust me, it doesn’t require as much thought as you’re putting into it. ”

“Well, if you say so…” Ed tried not to make himself sound so insecure about it, but he ended up sounding even worse than he wanted to.

“Here, just follow my lead,” Victor let go of Ed to move of his own accord and Ed tried his best to follow along,  “See? You’re doing fine already.”

“I feel clumsy,” Ed mumbled, but he smiled at him anyway. He tried to think of something else to say, settling on the topic that’d be plaguing his mind. “I like your makeup. Did you know that some ancient Egyptian eyeliner-”

“Contained lead to combat eye problems?” Victor finished, grinning back at him, “Yeah, I’ve learned a lot about makeup from a friend of mine.”

“I’ve been learning a lot too!” Ed yelled back, partially so Victor could hear him and partially out of excitement, “Who’s your friend?” he asked, hoping for another person to talk to about his newfound interest. 

“His name’s Oswald, he runs a youtube channel, great for learning from if you haven’t watched it before.” Ed felt his heart skip at that and he stumbled. He hoped his anxiety did not show when he spoke again.

“Oh, uh, no, I haven’t seen anything from him before. What’s he like?” Victor didn’t look convinced.

“He’s an absolute bastard. But he warms up well enough if he likes you. He’s actually here if you want to meet him.”

“Oh, no, that’s fine-”

“Hey, Oswald! Come over here!” Ed felt his stomach start to twist when a dark-haired man stood from the corner and walked towards them, drink in hand and slightly annoyed expression smeared across his otherwise perfectly made-up face. He wore a black and gold suit jacket, with gold glitter across his eyes to match, and even in the suboptimal, flashing lights of the dancefloor, Ed couldn’t stop himself from thinking he was even more gorgeous in real life.

“What the fuck do you want Zsasz, I told you I’m not interested in dancing tonight.” At least he sounded the same off-camera, uninterested, snarky, and slightly bitchy. Didn’t slow Ed’s pulse any, but it was a small comfort.

“Just wanted to introduce you to my new friend, Just-Ed. Just-Ed, this is Oswald Cobblepot ,” Zsasz gestured to each of them with a smile on his face. Ed knew his panic was visible but covered it with a smile. Oswald looked between the two of them, expression changing to one of mock joy.

“Hi, nice to meet you. Is that all you brought me over here for?” Oswald looked like he was about to leave and Ed couldn’t stop himself.

“W-Wait, before you go-!”

Oswald turned back around with a cocked brow, “What?” He sounded annoyed but Ed barely cared. Ed almost lost himself in his eyes before he realized he said something and his panic grew.

“D-Did you know that male emperor penguins keep their eggs w-warm by balancing them on their feet?”

“Excuse me?!”

Ed, realizing  _ that  _ was what came out of his mouth, was already halfway out the door by the time Oswald responded.

* * *

Jim returned to the bar with Harvey, ready to settle down and take a break from dancing.  They hadn’t seen Ed, and neither Echo nor Query had reported any emergencies, so they assumed his “experiment” was going well. Just as they settled in at the bar, however, the DJ cut the music and lights to make some sort of announcement. 

“Alright folks, we’re gonna slow down briefly for some karaoke!” she paused to allow the drunken cheers and applause to pass. “Up first, we’ve got Tabitha Galavan and Barbara Kean with  _ Girls Like Girls _ !” 

Harvey turned to Jim, his expression a mix of terror and annoyance. “We need to find Ed and get the fuck out of here now.”

Jim looked at him in confusion, “So she’s making a scene, that’s normal for her. No point in freaking Ed out when he's probably fi-”

“No, not her, dingus! If she’s here,  _ Cobblepot’s _ probably here, and Ed’s gonna lose his mind!” Jim had stopped listening to the explanation as soon as Oswald was mentioned, paying off the bartender and jumping from his stool, waving at them to keep the change.

“Tell the girls to check the tables and we’ll check the dancefloor,” Jim spoke as he and Harvey made their way through the crowd. He was so focused on his goal that he didn’t see the two men until he had run into them, spilling one of their drinks on the floor in the process.

“Watch where you’re- oh, Jim, I didn’t see you earlier,” Oswald batted his lashes as he spoke, ignoring the fact that his drink was now in a puddle. Jim nearly pushed past him without a word before Harvey started talking. 

“No time for that, Penguin. Have you seen our roommate? Tall, nerdy, probably nervous as hell-”

“Oh. He wouldn’t have spouted a penguin fact at me before running out the door, would he have?” Oswald’s brows furrowed in disappointed confusion. 

“That’s him, you sure he left?” Oswald and Victor both nodded. “Great, bye, tell Barbara I hate her guts!” Harvey called, running for the door with Jim on his heels. 

After ten minutes of running, the two burst through their living room door and found Ed sitting against the wall, eyes wide and staring at nothing. They approached him as cautiously as possible. 

“Ed? Buddy? What happened, why’d you run out?” Harvey questioned, kneeling a few feet in front of him. 

“Experiment failed,” he sighed, “I’m definitely bi.”


	5. Chapter 5

Despite his distraction at seeing Jim (and the copious amounts of alcohol he’d consumed), Oswald couldn’t get Victor’s “new friend” out of his head. What had him so jumpy, why the weird penguin fact of all things, and  _ why _ had he never heard of him in all of Barbara’s complaints about Jim?

“Barbara,” he nudged her as he spoke, interrupting her drunken giggling, “What can you tell me about Jim Gordon’s roommate?” Barbara blinked at him, seeming to try and process the question before she spoke.

“Ozzie,” she said, sounding far more sober than she should have, “ _ Please  _ tell me you don't mean Harvey Bullock.” 

Oswald snorted a laugh at that,"He wishes. No, I mean the other one.”

“Other one…? Oh,  _ that _ one. The well behaved one, right?” Oswald thought back to the man’s outburst and premature exit and wondered if Jim could possibly have a third roommate he didn’t know about.

“Uh, yeah, sure, that one. What’s he like?” 

“He’s...weird. Not ‘asshole-weird’ like Harvey can be, but  _ weird _ weird, “ she explained, “He yells a lot, he doesn’t sleep or go out often, he acts confident but he’s clumsy. Jim said he was a genius once, so I guess he must be smart?”

“Well, he sure seems like a  _ genius _ …” Oswald mumbled sarcastically, grateful that the loud music covered up his words. He took a sip out of his new drink, having abandoned the other on the dancefloor, and Barbara smirked slightly. Oswald sighed when he saw it in his peripherals and prepared for her to get nosy.

“Why do you ask? _ Hmmmmm?”  _ she teased, nudging him with her elbow.

“I ran into him a little while ago and yeah, he really was weird. You said he was loud and that he doesn’t really go out, but he was all jittery and could barely get a sentence out when I ran into him… Why would he even be here in the first place if he doesn’t leave his house?!” Oswald was getting farther and farther from his original point the more he spoke and at this point, he may have lost it, “Where was I going with this? I had a point.”

Barbara finished off her cocktail before standing, swaying a bit before she spoke, “You know, he has a channel too. If you want to know about him so bad, look him up.” 

“Him too? Do all three of them think they can be entertaining?” Oswald asked snidely. Barbara shrugged and turned her attention back to Tabitha, tugging her arm and making her stand to go dance. Oswald knew better than to try and get her attention back, so he waited until she was far enough away before pulling out his phone and looking up Jim’s channel. He didn’t bother looking at any of his content, choosing instead to go to his related channels and look for what he thought could be Ed. 

It didn’t take much searching. All he had to do was pick the channel that seemed the most nerdy and go from there. Oswald rolled his eyes a little at the name, but pressed on, determined to find out more about this mysterious second roommate. 

His channel was full of gaming videos, all with corny titles and overly detailed thumbnails. When Oswald said all three of them  _ thought  _ they could be entertaining, it seemed like  _ thought _ was an understatement. This man had over 25 million subscribers. Oswald was… curious. Only because Barbara seemed to describe him as a loud man of confidence, which was drastically different from the nervous nerd he just ran into.

The last karaoke song faded out with cheers before the DJ calmed them down, “Alright, that was Jensen Ackerman singing  _ DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love _ by Usher! Next up, we’ve got a couple of returning performers: Barbara Kean and Tabitha Galavan back again, this time with  _ Don’t Go Breaking My Heart _ by Elton John!”

“Oh,  _ God,” _ Oswald groaned, fishing for his earbuds in his pocket. He often brought earbuds with him to this club in the off-chance he got bored of the music there, and this was definitely one of those moments. He plugged them in and scrolled for something he might find interesting under this  _ Enigmatical.  _

The first video to catch his eye was about something called  _ The Stanley Parable.  _ The game itself didn’t interest him, with its themes of obedience, but Ed’s reaction did. He seemed to try and obey the narrator at first, but soon took pleasure in disobeying every command he was given. This, coupled with his borderline egotistical attitude, was the opposite of the nervous wreck he’d run into prior. 

After about 15 minutes, Oswald started to lose interest in what Ed was playing and instead focused on this “other side” he displayed. There was no way he was confident in every video he was in. Maybe something he collaborated in on another channel showed something different with him.

His first thought was to go back to Jim’s channel and see if Ed was in any of his videos. He had to be, right? Ed was the mysterious second roommate, he had to be in at least one of Jim’s stunts. Oswald was always mesmerized by Jim’s agility and dauntless attitude. He scrolled through, looking at various thumbnails and titles to see any dead giveaway that Ed was in the video before remembering that he was still at the club. He should probably leave if he was done partying.

“Zsasz!” Oswald called out into the crowd on the dancefloor, eyes scanning for his designated driver. He found him breakdancing in the center of the crowd with drunken cheers egging him on. Oswald sighed, but let Zsasz finish before speaking with him, “Can you take me home?”

“Why? Done here already?” Zsasz questioned with a quirked brow muscle.

“Kind of. I’m just tired of this place right now, all of the weirdos are out.”

Zsasz looked around at the crowd of regulars with only occasional new faces and a couple of people that clearly couldn’t handle alcohol well. Oswald knew that Zsasz saw through his excuse, he just had to hope that Zsasz didn’t care.

“Well, if you want to. I’ll fetch Barbara and meet you in the car,” Zsasz nodded. Oswald tried to weave through the drunkards, ignoring the catcalling and wolf whistles as he pushed open the front doors and searched for their parking space. It didn’t take long to find the black vehicle, and it also didn’t take long for Zsasz to be wrestling Barbara out of the bar, Tabitha tightly glued onto her arm. They were both off of their fucking rockers with alcohol as Oswald noticed how much Barbara and Tabitha struggled to even stand properly.

“C-Can we grab food on the way back? I’m reeeaaaaaally hungry…” Barbara slurred once they were all in the car and buckled in. It sounded like she was speaking gibberish, but Oswald was so used to it, he understood her perfectly.

“No, we have food at home. There’s that leftover pizza in the fridge from last night, you can have that,” Oswald crossed his arms, glaring out the window at nothing in particular.

“But Ozzy…!” She leaned forward in her seat to lazily drape her arms around the man and Oswald tensed before pushing her away.

“Barbara, it’s midnight. I want to go home.”

“Aw, you’re no fun!” Barbara pouted and Tabitha tried to comfort her, but she struggled to remain conscious while doing so. It was silent for a few scant seconds before Barbara spoke again, a knowing tone in her voice, “You just want to look at cute boys on the internet again. Since Jim left, you wanted to leave too so you could be a goddamn simp on his, uh… Fuck, what’s the word… channel!”

Oswald felt his cheeks redden as his glare turned to Barbara, “N-No! It’s not about Jim! ” Barbara’s smirk grew to a cheshire grin at that.

“So it  _ is _ the other one! Like I said, just cute boys on the internet!” she giggled madly, falling back on Tabitha before settling down a bit.

“He’s not cute,” Oswald rolled his eyes at her insinuation, “He’s just weird. Who goes from confident loudmouth to socially awkward scaredy-cat?”

“Well, maybe he’s got anxiety surrounding short angry dudes,” Zsasz piped up from the front seat. Oswald looked at him exasperated. “What? You scare  _ me _ sometimes.”

Oswald turned back to Barbara, ready to argue with her again but saw that she was half asleep. He considered kicking her back awake but decided to use the remainder of the car ride to go back to Jim’s channel, continuing his search. 

He was determined to find out more about this Ed, but he found himself doing what he usually does when he’s on the internet. His center of attention slowly dragged back to Jim, finding the playlist of his solo parkour videos Oswald had seen many times by now.  He found one he hadn’t seen yet, having somehow missed the upload a few months prior, and set back to watch, double checking that his earbuds were still in place so as not to wake the sleeping couple next to him. 

The video started like any of Jim’s videos did; the man of the hour with that perfect smile waving at the camera. He failed to hold back his own smile, blushing as his eyes remained on Jim almost the entire video...  until Jim was about to execute his final stunt and a tall, awkward looking man stumbled into frame. 

“ED! Get out of the shot!!” Harvey Bullock’s voice came from out of frame, startling Ed into falling. He scrambled to get up, managing to make it onto all fours before “running” out of shot. 

“What the fuck…?” Oswald muttered to himself as he watched Ed cryptid-run away.  That was definitely the klutz he had met earlier, though somehow he had even more questions than he had started out with. Luckily, he had no time to ask any of them, because Victor pulled up to the curb outside their house on Gotham’s outskirts and began shaking Tabitha to carry her intoxicated girlfriend. As Tabitha stumbled towards the door, Barbara (more or less) in her arms, Oswald hung back to talk to Victor.

“Victor, what was your new friend like?”  Oswald started, leaning his back against the car and crossing his arms as he watched the two women stumble toward their front door.

“Well, I found him looking around the club like a fish out of water. He was drinking a Midori and it seemed like he was worried about someone finding him or something. I don’t know, but he complimented my makeup, I told him it was from you, and he started internally dying.”

“Wait, what do you mean internally dying?” Oswald raised a brow at Zsasz’s use of words. The man shrugged.

“He was freaking out. Big time. It got worse when I called you over,”  Zsasz spoke casually but clearly seemed suspicious, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” Oswald answered, nonchalant,  “Just trying to figure out why he acted the way he did. I watched a couple of his videos and he was completely different in front of a camera.”

“Why are you surprised he acted the way he did? It’s obvious he has a blatant crush on you.”

Oswald smirked and Zsasz sighed knowingly, “A crush, you say? On me? Did you happen to get his number?”

“No, Oswald, I didn’t get his number. Don’t do this to him.”

“I’m not gonna do anything!” Oswald pouted, “I just want to get to know him better, maybe he could be useful.”

“That’s the exact opposite of not doing anything, Oswald.” 

Oswald didn’t say anything that time, instead choosing to look away and glare at nothing in particular. It was silent for a few more moments before Zsasz spoke again, “Hey, can I crash on your couch tonight?”

Oswald sighed, “At this point, the couch is yours. I couldn’t give less of a shit.”  He started towards the door, leaving Victor to come inside whenever he decided. By now, he ought to just have a key. 

He did his best to ignore the giggling couple making a mess of the kitchen and headed down the hall to his room, loosening his tie and shucking his jacket as he walked. He didn’t bother hanging them when he made it, choosing instead to drop them and flop into the chair by his vanity. He pushed his dress pants off to start fumbling with the straps of his leg brace, cursing under his breath. 

It wasn’t that he disliked Gotham’s nightlife crowd, per se, but the group that tended to gather at  _ Mooney’s _ was rowdy and always left him drained. He finally managed to remove the brace, barely restraining himself from flinging it across the room before turning to his mirror to tend to his makeup. After giving himself a once over, however, he decided it wasn’t worth the effort and limped to his bed, forgoing pajamas to sleep in his dress shirt. His phone, treacherous thing that it was, had unlocked itself and gone back to YouTube, showing Jim’s video with a playlist of Ed’s videos recommended beneath.  The playlist in question consisted of scary games the man had played and posted. Oswald thought for a moment before clicking on it, allowing them to play. The more conceited parts of his mind assured him that he would be asleep in seconds.

Next thing he knew, it was 5 a.m. and he hadn’t slept a single second of the night.  When this did happen, rare as it was, he would normally just throw his blankets back over his head and sleep, but the clattering of dishes (and the occasional swear) down the hall brought him out of his room to investigate. What he saw when entered made him pause; Barbara Kean in her girlfriend’s shirt, hair askew and smudged eyeliner darkening her already dark circles. His instinctual manners overrode his irritation at being awoken.

“Good morning,” he tried, his usual cheek sneaking into his tone. 

“It really isn’t, but thank you anyways,” she replied, ladling batter into the pan, “You look like shit.”

“I’m aware. Thank you,”  Oswald sat at the bar looking into the kitchen, “Not that you look much better currently.”

“I’d look at least slightly better if I hadn’t been kept awake all night by the sounds of screaming coming from your room. Care to elaborate on what that was?” Oswald feigned nonchalance at the accusation.

“You must have been hearing things, Barb. I slept like a baby.” 

“Tabitha heard it too. And Victor, even though he fell asleep to it. Not to mention your dark circles give you away,” she paused for a moment to flip the pancake, “Are you going to fess up or not?”

“Fess up to what?” Oswald pretended not to know what she was talking about once more.

“Look, you were either watching horror movies or watching some weird stuff Victor sent you, cause there was definitely screaming all night and I couldn’t tell if it was screams of fear or pleasure,” Tabitha spoke up, falling asleep at the kitchen counter trying to watch Barbara make her pancakes.  Oswald jumped a little, startled by her voice.

“Have you been here the whole time?!” he asked, glancing toward the door for any other surprise interruptions. Tabitha rolled her eyes and laid her head back down, ignoring the question. Barbara, clearly unfazed, got Oswald’s attention by smacking his hand lightly with the spatula. 

“Stop avoiding the question! What on earth were you watching last night?” Oswald tried to think of an excuse when Victor decided to make his entrance, a disappointed look on his face. 

“Oswald, I asked you not to bother him, so why did I hear Ed’s voice screaming all night?” Barbara rolled her eyes, giving a deadpan look before turning back to her now-burning pancake. Tabitha, however, looked up with interest.

“You just met this one and you’re already-”  Tabitha started before Oswald cut her off.

“I am not. I was just… watching his videos, the horror ones specifically-”

“Did you sleep at all?”

Oswald glared at her, knowing that the dark circles made his stare even more intense as he grabbed the pot of coffee on the kitchen counter, “I don’t know, does this look like the face of a man who slept?” 

“Why are you getting coffee? You don’t even like coffee and we brewed that for Zsasz, specifically.”

“I just need something to keep me awake the rest of the day so I don’t fall asleep halfway through a video,” Oswald made a movement as if he were going to pour the coffee into a mug before mumbling “fuck it” to himself and drinking it straight from the pot. The taste was almost unbearable, but he would have to deal with it if he wanted the caffeine. Tabitha snickered under her breath, muttering a “gremlin” as she nestled further into her arms. Zsasz stared in disappointment as his coffee disappeared. Oswald, feeling a rare stab of pity, left him enough for a single mug’s worth before leaving the room to get ready for the day’s shoot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the gay panic is strong with this one


End file.
